Six years after the death of Napoleon, Sir Walter Scott wrote a hugely successful biography that was instantly controversial and led to him being challenged to duels by former Napoleon generals. It was the ideal meeting of minds between the man who revolutionised literary Europe and the man who transformed the face of its politics. His thundering assault on Napoleon, based on first-ever access to secret government papers, was the inspiration for later academic historians such as Carlyle and remains fresh, surprising and important to this day.
